Censorship

Posthumous edits to works by famous authors like Agatha Christie and Roald Dahl have made the news recently. I assume that “enormous” was substituted for “fat” in Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to avoid “fat shaming” some children, but I think we risk more than we gain when we change an author’s language to suit current sensibilities. When will “a handful of words,” become paragraphs, pages or entire books? How can I justify censorship in the name of achieving inclusivity, which I support, and at the same time condemn censorship to achieve someone else’s goals because I don’t agree with them?  

I recently read a section of the Passover Haggadah at my temple’s Seder entitled “The Four Children.” When I was growing up, our Haggadah told the story of “The Four Sons.” I felt excluded from my own heritage, and even more resentful when I had two daughters. There are probably still copies of the  Haggadahs where I crossed out “sons” and wrote “children” in the basement. This contemporary language change welcomed me as a Jewish woman, and from a business perspective (which certainly motivates many of the recent editorial changes), encouraged me to buy a Haggadah that was more in line with my beliefs. I would have felt very differently, however, if someone changed “children” to “sons.”   

“You want to think about the precedent that you’re setting, and what would happen if someone of a different predisposition or ideology were to pick up the pen and start crossing things out,” said Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America.

I was appalled, but not shocked, when a school principal in Florida was forced to resign when a parent took offense at the use of Michelangelo’s statue of David in an art lesson. Florida’s Governor has created an environment that encourages banning books, or in this case a work of art, that offends any of his supporters’ conservative values.

It is better not to start down the slippery slope of censorship, no matter how admirable one’s intent.